


Head of Household

by skellerbvvt



Series: Gasoline Family [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Asexual Character, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6490570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skellerbvvt/pseuds/skellerbvvt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why you gotta a pad of butcher paper stuck in your pocket?” Dum Dum held up Bucky’s coat that he’d tossed to the side somewhere in the second hand.</p><p>“Firestarter.” And Bucky’d sat in his own skin and thought about snitching shoe wadding so Steve’d had something to sketch on. The lesson he’d learned first and best was blank paper weren’t nothing to sneeze on</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head of Household

Bucky finally got himself a skill position. If Steve goddamn Rogers hadn’t put his nose in, then maybe he’d never’ve found it. He’d’ve just been learning enough to get himself through until the next day. That’s how you got through anything, just hauled your body from one paycheck to the next.

He’d’ve thought he’d be shoveling and marching and maybe throwing a grenade or two. Steve goddamn Rogers had decided to make Bucky smell like a whole alley fulla cats. So good ol’ James Buchanan Barnes weren't getting off easy.

Would’ve been better if it was in season, but no. Enlisted man, regulation order James Buchanan Barnes smelling musk among sweet. Most of ‘em on the train had left their parent’s house. The fourth or fifth auxiliaries were likely government or church. Like Bucky's siblings. Got a sisters whose priest and brothers marching. Hell, gotta sibling who works for the IRS, if you believe it. Never does Bucky no favors, but, well...

All these fellas in the trains were third, second or dowry.

(He’d’ve already been regulation order if Steve hadn’t stuck his nose in back then too.)

S.I. pair sniffed him out. Pinned him down as “Primary." Ran him through every test on the book.

He was none too hot at all that sneaking around business. Couldn’t run that much faster than anybody else. Especially not that one track star who’d found their sorry selves in uniform. Fella was so hot of heel that Bucky figured he coulda hit a landmine and scurried 'fore it blew.

There were a coupla farmer types who got on real well with the dogs for bomb sniffing. Folks sending in their pet dogs for training. Little Spot and good ol' Yeller coming to rat out the Hun. The British killed all their pets back when the shelling was real bad. Or, that what the brass said. Killed all their pets and sent their support to fight.

There'd been posters side-by-side: **EVEN A DOG ENLISTS, WHY NOT YOU?**

Next to:

**I'D RATHER BE WITH THEM...THAN WAITING. U.S. MARINES ENLIST.**

Bucky’s seen maybe six dogs in his life. Rats, now. If you got yourself some rats to sniff bombs out, then Bucky’d might be some help, maybe. Bucky’d had himself an understanding with rats. He reported ‘em to the landlord, and they’d eat him if they ever found his body.

He did pretty good on the math bit. So, if you’ve got yourself a point A.) and you’ve got an object leaving point A.) at about 853 miles per second then.... If Bucky remembered it right, then gravity had a vertical effect on a moving object just the same as a still one. In the book been no air resistance, so… but there’d be wind. You couldn’t forget to add in air resistance and wind trajectory. Or did that matter with bullets? He added both answers. Just to be sure.

...if gravity pulled something down at about...wait, no. There’d been a word problem about an arrow sent from William Tell’s bow. So he had to aim above his target...no, wait, also, the earth curved, but that shouldn’t matter from…

He’d hit the target from a distance of 100 meters farther than the next best fella. Sure it took him a few tries, but he got it. All-in-all not bad for never having seen a gun outside of the cinema.

In the back of his head, there was some old fella saying that a sniper had to hit a body from 400 yards and a head from 200 yards. Worst of all a person had be good at working alone. That was the real kicker. Damn few support lasted long outside of a family. Even them folks that rode the rails back in the 30’s were always working around in groups. You wanna put a murderer in a cell by himself for a few days? You’d better believe he’d come crawling back to lawfulness. Folks that didn’t got shipped to a sanitarium. Used to be you could get a nickel tour of ‘em if you wanted.

According to just about everything that made anybody who could do solo missions? A goddamn precious goddamn commodity. Spies, of course, were something else. Somebody who could fake a bond and turn their backs was something else. Spies didn’t get prison, just dead.

He’d read that one sniper POW was worth about as much as an entire battalion. Dollar-to-bullet wise, anyways. But that was back a couple decades, who knew what the figures were now? German snipers used to lay low in no man’s land next to fake trees. Sometimes they’d send up kites with English writing. They'd pick off anybody who was fool enough to raise their head to read it.

English'd raise up fake heads with tubing so the mannequin would smoke. They’d figure out where the sniper was from the angle of bullet holes. Bucky used to read that sorta thing as a kid, seeing as how he was where he was. He'd figured himself healthy and good at listening, so he'd get himself sold to marching. That was all. You could get yourself sold to the government or the church, and he guessed people just didn’t figure him for the clergy type.

He'd thought Steve'd saved him from all that. World had a funny way of getting you in the mud. One way or another.

Brass'd figured he was good enough shot that'd ended up in a blind. Seeing as how they needed to run as many bodies through the isolation bit as possible.

(“Private Barnes, what’s the longest amount of time you’ve spent solitary?”

“I once got locked in a stockroom for a couple of hours, sirs,” Bucky’d said. Standing at attention as bonded brass sniffed him over like a Sunday Roast.

“Your S.I.’s say you’re adapting well to separating from your omega.” They’d looked him over in unison. Nostrils flaring. Bucky glanced down. Their nails were neat and trimmed. Pen callouses on the pointer fingers. Ink dried into some of the cracks. Word sort of fellas. The kind of couple a younger Bucky could have gotten dinner from for a song and a story if he’d been keen. Had that blanched office-worker look to ‘em. Bonded pretty early in life, got that childhood sweetheart vibe. Easy sell.

“Just trying to get myself back home to ‘em in one piece, sirs.” Bucky’d said, half a smile on, eyes going distant for a second. Childhood sweethearts were suckers for a loyal auxiliary with a sob story.)

So that had him staring down his sights at a neat little target. They start off with a target and later they’ll make ‘em look like people. Get the blood fever up. They’d nodded approvingly at his scared up knuckles and the scars on the inside of his mouth from where his teeth had cut in.

(During the physical exam he’d let his head wander off and he’d found itself right back in a Doctor’s office, Steve breathing for a stethoscope.)

Him and this other support named Violet were the only bodies the government thought deserved a fancy gun.

Violet’d said (while dismantling and reassembling her rifle) that she’d met her potential when she’d beaned a baseball into the face of his bully.

“Right in the kisser.” she’d said, taking a good hard look at the rifle they’d started off with. “Hooo-wee I’ve never held a gun this sweet. You’re a real crooner, ain’t ya?” She stroked down the side of her rifle like a kid with a new steely.

Bucky just nodded. Bucky Barnes was a champion nodder. Don’t let nobody tell you different.

“Me’n Teddy, we’d go to state fairs to get prizes. He’d have me shoot down clay pigeons. We were gonna go national with the whole dog and pony show. Then all a sudden we’re at war."

Bucky'd nodded while she'd tucked her head back and mocked: "You drive a car here, why not in France?"

"You drive?" Bucky'd asked, 'cause he'd seen plenty of cars, never gotten behind the wheel of any. Didn't matter, army threw Jeeps at anybody with hands.

"Sure," She said, half a shoulder up. "Teddy needed himself a driver. His parents thought his precious hands might burn onna wheel. Drove just about all over for the fairs."

Bucky'd nodded.

"And Teddy’s family is none too hot on me, so they shipped me off to the first recruitment officer who came into town. Said that if I could get myself a rank I’d be worth the bother. You know Teddy’s got an older brother already shipped off, got rank and blew up? Thy put up his picture with his medal and sat me down right there in front of it. What they’ve got you here for?”

Bucky didn’t want to say he’d passed the physics test and they’d handed him a gun in exchange. Also didn’t much feel like saying the government had probably seen Steve’s medical file and Bucky as his only asset, shrugged, and said “That one’ll be free soon.” Or about how Steve had been so goddamn Steve about it. For all he’d gotten Steve’s portrait, he hadn’t done much talking about him. Sort of figured he go back to how it used to be: Trap shut Barnes.

Well, sure, he’d gotten sorta to the bit with basic with the M1 Gerand Rifle. He’d been able to disassemble and reassemble pretty quick. They wanted you to be able to do is half-silent with a blindfold. Not the fastest in the unit, sure. Least he wasn’t lumped in with the awkward squad sitting on their thumbs and panting for a biscuit.

So he’d just shrugged, “Got lucky, I guess.”

“Hey, you’re over thinking this bit. Watch me,” She said, her hands moving over the gun like feet on a dance floor. “Got to put your brain in your hands, click, click, click: boom.”

(“Grew up on top of a mechanic’s shop. My ma and dad put me in front of a toaster when I was five and said ‘figure it out,’” Private Haroldson said. He'd whipped apart his rifle, cleaned it out, and snapped it together like it was all just knitting. “They had me in the shop since I was five.”

Private Haroldson could take apart, clean, and assemble his weapon twice before anyone else had stumbled through the half of it. He knew how to drive a Jeep and when the army tossed a vehicle at some idiot like Bucky and the inevitable happened, Privat Haroldson could fix it. Boy was half scar and half grease, but boy. If the oven in the mess wasn’t working, he’d get in cleaned and boiling in no time.

“So what the hell got you skilled position ass here with the rest of us idiots?” Somebody’d asked, stumbling along behind, jamming their thumb again.

Private Haroldson had shrugged, “Uncle Sam pays room, board, so that’ll save them some money. Offered them $520 even if I only ever make private buck, since I’m skill position. So they told me to work for foreign service because there's another $120 and that’s not bad money. So, here I am. Take out expenses that’s making more money than I was ever gonna make in the family business.”)

So the brass had handed him a Springfield rifle, sat him up in a tree and told him to make the sun shine through something. Had him aiming down clay pigeons and ventilating straw dummies and the like. The final day the test was to assassinate one of the Hitlers. Or a straw dummy with a dumb mask, in any case.

Violet did it just fine. Took a few measured breaths. Just watching her, the shot came as a surprise, she looked as peaceful as Head of House knitting.

She whistled. “Well I’ll tell you, I like the look of that. Wouldn’t mind that on the nose flying overhead, tell you what.”

“Hmm.” Bucky licked his lips, stared down the field as they set up a new one of the Hitlers for him. It was a little funny, h thought, about how Germany and Japan were in this together, and how Japan’d ben the one to go and bomb America, but he sure as Hell didn’t know who was running that shit show over East. Not much books about it at the local library.

What was also pretty weird was that Japan and England’d been allies back in the Great War to go fight Germany. But then it was also sort of funny that nobody much talked about it. Just one of the Hitlers. One of the Mussolinis, maybe. Sausage/Beer and Fascism. Pizza/Wine and Fascism. Steve probably knew the pair ruling Japan.

“Gotta be something else, working on them tanks and things,” Violet said. She peered through her scope and sightseeing through Scarecrow-One Of The Hitlers. “Bet they purr real good. Hear like it’s being in a heat nest.” She’s side-eyed him.

Bucky huffed.

“Hey, not like I know, pal,” Violet said. “Heard you came in like a fire hydrant. Help a fella out.”

Bucky got his eyebrows up, “You listening to mess hall rumors?”

“Know you’re dowery.” Violet licked her lips.

They were chapped straight to Hell. Bucky’s ma would attack him with lard or vaseline if he got too bad. Head of House always said coffee ground were best for dark circles and baking soda was best laundry. Chuck his chin and say: “You got your ma’s eyes and your pa’s jaw. Get us some money. Do us right.”

“Know you walked onto the train stinking of last-ditch bitch. Know the bass want you in the hope chest. Everything else comes and goes, but that sticks.”

Bucky’s got the perfect opportunity to spin whatever story fits, and instead he just sits quiet. He could tell that he’s Head of House for Steve and some pretty alpha and they’ve got themselves a pack big enough to play cross the Dodgers. He could talk about Steve’s art, and how he helps it the pups and gets minded.

Bucky looked back at his notes. Looked at One Of The Hitler cut-outs. Felt the wind and clocked it. Nestled the Springfield down. He looked at the numbers. Over there at the target. Checked his math again. If it was wrong, than he didn’t have the head to fix it.

Violet eyes the S.I’s smokin’ at each other than rolled over next to him like they were kids in a playground, kept her voice low.

“Take a breath. See the numbers, right?” She tapped the paper and kept her eyes straight ahead.

“Turn it from that into that-” She had time to point out into the range.

“No talking.” The S.I.’s shouted, “shit or get off the pot.”

Violet white flag’d it and belly crawled out of sight.

Bucky eyed the target and then he sort of... If Steve could turn a thing and make it into a picture, then maybe it wasn’t so hard to see the reverse. Gravity was constant, that was easy, you could see it curve something down. Just like picturing a baseball game: the crack of the bat a the announcer declared the direction and in your head you just watched it fall. Him and his siblings used to crowd around the radio, doing piecemeal work if it allowed, or mending. The first time Bucky’d ever had his hands free was when Steve’d grabbed his army after giving Bucky’s parents their due. Bucky’d been worth a core-family portrait, which, hey. Given that Bucky’s sister Rebecca had gone for a week-long inch ad in the paper, wasn’t so bad. At least you could see evidence he’d lived there if you went for a visit on Easter.

Just move the crosshairs to...there. Alright. Wind was coming in front the west at...hmm. Take a three deep breaths. Let it the last one out: fire.

His S.I.’s whistled low when he got most of that Hilter’s arm off. Wouldn’t leave a man dead, but was, at least, hitting the target. That was a good sight better than most folks. Especially seeing as Bucky was on a month now of cradling guns.

“Alright.” The S.I. omega said while his partner chewed a cud’s worth of tobacco. “Now you two just have to pass isolation training and I guess we can rack up some Nazi heads.”

Violet’s smile faltered and Bucky’s stomach went cold, but he took the pack and marched to where the map told him to go. He climbed up the tree and pretend it was a game of Hide-and-Track.

(“Hey,” He’d said before they set off in different directions. “Seven Mississippi’s.”

She’d looked at him.

“You don’t survive 24 hours. You survive...about 12,343 little pieces of it. Count to seven Mississippi's and when you’re done just...” He’d circled his hand around.

“Shut it and move out, unless we’re all here sucking our thumbs wanting to nose our mama’s tits-” There was more, but Bucky wouldn’t be much Brooklyn if he couldn’t hum out some fella’s yammering.)

The test was 24 hours in a tree. If you could sleep, sure. There was an olive colored canvas tarp and some rope. He killed a bit of time getting that set up so nobody’d see. Had himself a compass and a map. Had a pocket watch and a wet finger, spent some time clocking the wind.

What Bucky’d read about British snipers was that they were all bonded officers. Which meant there were less of ‘em, but they learned how to blend into their environment. One a shooter, one a spotter, and they’d halted the German advance for awhile.

America had a different philosophy about that: Get Through Or Get Buried.

He had a pack of cigarettes and smoked one. In the field it would probably get him got faster than a schmuck wearing high-end cologne on the wrong side of town. But here he was, in a tree, with a pack minus one and having to boil down twenty...three hours now, into nothing.

Violet lasted 10 hours. Her skin crawled her down, maybe. Needing a hand caught in thick of the curls coiled tight against her scalp, or clap on her shoulder. Bucky didn’t know what happened to her after that. Maybe she tried again, or they gave her a spotter. They’d give you one if you were worth it, but all the stories were about rugged lone warriors who went out west and circled the edge like half-feral guard dog.

Bucky put his head down. He dug his nails in and thought about Steve clawing at the door during a heat. He ate some meat out of a can and peed maybe on a squirrel, but they gave him the pay raise and a specialist position. He thought about sending a letter with the notification. Didn’t know what to write, and didn’t have the time besides.

Steve’d understand.

Extra commission for confirmed kill of officers, head or bars would do it.

\---

Somebody read his file and picked him up. They didn’t give him any leave. Said it'd mess up the bonding. They roped him up with the rest of the 107th and locked ‘em up in a bunker and gave it a few days. Him a buncha scared idiots vying for a bonded pair's attention. Them two that looked like they’d just been fresh-scrubbed for Sunday service.

And it was like old books about royal weddings. A group from one country locked in with some other country. It was the only way to get two packs to bond. You needed a week or two honey-period, to see if they'd bond or murder each other. S'why you used to marry 'em young, so the dowries would be small and not so... Well.

Even in the Bible, Mary's dowry almost killed Joseph's second for calling her unfaithful. Only reason little Marie Antoinette survived was because her dowry snarled down what's-her-face over in France. And Marie was only 14 when she got hitched.

Shakespeare wrote himself the other version of that story. Lots of stage blood, if you liked.

("Whatcha reading?" Steve'd asked. He'd flopped over Bucky'd tired body. Put some well needed pressure along his poor spine.

"Nothing much. Library got itself a donation." Bucky stretched under Steve's weight. Steve's breath had hitched. Bucky'd craned around. "The dust ain't too bad, is it? I beat out the rugs."

"Nah." Steve's said. Pressed his face into Bucky's shoulder blades until something popped. "I'm fine."

"Sure, pal," Bucky couldn't do much on his stomach and under Steve. "But if I gotta listen to you hacking all night I ain't gonna be fine.")

\---

Turned out real life was more Shakespeare than history.

\---

There was a fly circling near his ear.

Bucky wasn't sleeping. Sergeant James Barnes was sleeping. Sergeant James Barnes went to bed easy every night. He did his rounds, checked in with the troops and went away. Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th cleaned his gun, changed his socks, and then helped with his half-tent. Sergeant James Barnes fell asleep: no problem. Sergeant James Barnes completed his watch: no problem. Neat and clean was Sergeant James Barnes.

There'd been a breeding pair in charge before. It's how it went. You had a regiment and at the head was a military pair and they were all pack, then. James Barnes' had been a good auxiliary. They'd slapped his back and called him an asset to the team.

“Look at that,” they'd said. “See that, got him right in the chest. And you can put the fella up a blind for a few days none the worse for wear.”

And they’d put good ol’ Sergeant James Barnes up in a tree, and he'd done alright. Bucky'd at inside him and thought about nothing. If you thought about the fellas on the other end you got yourself dead. Sergeant James Barnes would knock a whole line of Nazis down. Somebody said it was like bowling. Strike.

(He’d gotten the Sergeant because a German sniper team had been on the other side of a farm. Nice and breezy day, with no sign of the enemy. They'd been shooting the shit, and then there'd been a neat little pop. And Bucky'd stood there, covered in blood, while the Sergeant Omega had stared blank. The whole troop’d flattened down to avoid fire. Gotten picked off until Private Barnes had thrown a grenade to mask their retreat.

They’d been talking about lunch.

The sun had been out and the weather warm and then they’d been dead. Birth story of Sergeant Barnes.)

Buzzing was getting loud. Course it was some bug, breaking up his brain. All these supports here and most of them were all tossed together. The bonds snapping close because a hard honeymoon'd do ya. He'd read, alright? He'd heard about the European War About all the marching and folks buttonholed in trenches. Folks bonding so tight they hadn't functioned without one another. People from California moving to Minnesota so the troop wouldn't get split.

If there was a thing James Barnes was, it was a quick study. Sergeant James Barnes slept well, the son of a bitch. Sergeant James Barnes shot straight and passed the booze off to his men. When they all camped together, sitting around real close, Sergeant James Barnes looked into the fire. Sergeant James Barnes kept watch. Didn't say nothing. Didn't ask: what was this? What was this thing they were throwing more and more bodies into?

Bucky stayed up. Bucky heard a fly circling. Heard plenty of things. Bucky'd lived his whole life trampling across one city. Now he'd crossed country lines and seen every kind of mud that existed. Bucky wrapped up in a camp roll. Tired down to the bitter tiny little nugget of himself that was all wrapped up in that training, these uniforms, that mud.

Steve was safe as anybody was, these days. Funny, how a couple months ago Bucky's looked out from the dock over the ocean and thought: “yeah, that'll take care of it.”

It was real damn funny how people had talked about Europe like it was the goddamn moon. How Bucky'd thought of Japan and Hawaii as a story in some books.

But Steve was as safe as anybody was ever gonna be.

Couldn't go into the military unpaired. Nobody'd take him. He was at home, safe, maybe. Had to be. Steve must've been sending letters that were catching up to Bucky.

Wasn't a fly, was it?

Sergeant Barnes was up and putting out the fire and moving before he could put words in his head. It was too late if you could hear them. But they weren't gonna be too interested in a tiny little battalion, right? They were moving into cities.

He got them dark as they could. Everybody crawled out of the tents and into the bushes. Bushes wouldn't stop a bomb, but neither would tents. Bucky watched through his binoculars.

Last this had happened, they'd been in a city. It'd been another air raid and they'd all gone down into the tomb and stuck together. When Bucky'd chanced a look there'd been hands in everyone's hair. Bucky’d been piping out safe-sent. Not even a dent into all that fear sweat, but a fella had to try.

Sergeant Barnes had held some nineteen-year-old by the neck, no. Not some nineteen-year-old. Nineteen-year-old George Harris, from Iowa. Nineteen-year-old George Harries been carried to a field hospital last Bucky'd known. Bucky'd asked him if he had anyone back home and George had huffed: “With all due respect sir, I'm about as useful as two left shoes.”

Army was a great way to meet people and never see 'em again.

Was there an air base near here? The map hadn't said so, but these guys...Germans. They just expanded. Every time Bucky got to a base, he hid inside Sergeant Barnes and looked at all the little flags eating up the map. Springing up like newsies after a good away game.

The planes passed overhead, noise leaving off. But they all stayed real quiet. Bucky fired during artillery rounds. Bucky put mud on his face so it wouldn’t shine in the light and buried himself in leaf piles. Sergeant Barnes brought in the bars and heads. Set the commission aside.

(Bucky'd been up a hill five days ago. They said you could have written a letter on the neat lines of troops he'd picked off.

Dum Dum'd walked among the bodies and pointed at one: “Bang,” took a step.

“Reload,” and his foot hit the next body.

“Bang. Sure you ain’t clockwork, Barnes?”

“I'll get ticked off easy enough if that's what you're working on.” Bucky'd said because Sergeant James Barnes had been busy pulling off boots. Everyone else had been ruffling for cigarettes, booze or compasses off the bodies.

The Nazi clothing wasn't no good. The uniform was sleek, sure, in the pictures. Once you ended up fighting off against a few Nazis? You learned real quick that them looking sharp for the pictures was all they were good for. Bucky’s winter coat had cotton wadding quilted in the lining. These fellas had goddamn fur stuffing there. Fur that smelled like rot and didn't stop a fresh breeze once it got wet. They kept saying the war would be over by Christmas because the damn Nazis would freeze to death by then.

Their boots did alright, though.

The swastika’d inept that Sergeant James Barnes was working on had feet about Bucky's size, a letter tucked in his bloody breast pocket, and only most of a face left. All his meat spilled out. There was a crow working on a fella a coupla yards over. Overfed, coddled dead-end.

“Found the pair.” Dum Dum'd called out, around a cigar. Who knew where he was getting 'em. He got even less mail than Bucky. Even though Bucky’d written and said he got himself a skill position. When Steve was sore he was damn near unbearable. Bucky'd written bout how it’d still been a pretty low trick. About how they’d made him a Sergeant and all. Jack all back.

“Tell the Holstaffs,” Bucky'd said. “Get me the bars, wouldja?”

“You're almost too kind to 'em, Barnes.” Dum Dum had mused instead. He'd had his arms crossed and his stupid bowler hat tipped up, Bucky remembered. Didn't look a bit like a soldier. He'd looked like maybe he'd sort of wandered in and found himself in a war.

Sergeant Barnes’d finally gotten the boots off only to find the fella's feet were more pus than flesh. Bucky’d thrown the shoe at the crows. They’d fluttered away, just to resettle on some other face. They always went for the eyes and the tongue first. Bucky rolled his tongue in his mouth. There were some poems he’d read about tongueless soldiers, and poor sweet little Jimmy Barnes had thought it’d been a metaphor for death. Written a cute little paper about it.

Somebody'd knifed Bucky’s boot. His foot'd been fine, and he'd been on the hunt for a good pair since. The patch did alright, save for cold. The knife got him right between the toes if you could believe it. (“You’re a goddamn rabbit’s foot, you know that Barnes?” “You mean lucky for everybody ‘cept the rabbit?” “Between that and the horseshoe, all I know is that luck runs.” “In the feet?” “Nah. Just away.)

 

“Look at that. Bet he didn't even notice she was gone before you had ‘em.” Dum Dum'd gone on.

Bucky’d kicked some dirt over the German's rotting feet. “Well, you know me, Dum Dum. I'm a nice guy.”

Dum Dum'd laughed, but it hadn't been funny. )

Omega Holstaff hit the kid on watch around the ears once they were clear. Sergeant Barnes had counted to make sure everyone got back. He'd listened to the creak of dark and who figured, right? City boy learning to pay attention to noise again. Could tell the crack of a boot versus the shuffle of a rabbit in the bush and he still wasn't half so good as some country boy. Steve'd be pretty impressed. Bucky could get it so nobody could even sniff him out. British Army had all this research about fox piss and pine sap. Bucky could just get himself up a tree and vanish.

“Good ear, Barnes,” Alpha Holstaff said and clapped him on the shoulder.

“If you play this war right, you'll have yourself a career by the end of it. Might get yourself in some General’s pack.”

Despite himself, he pictured Steve weighed down with medals. Steve all belted up in one of the dress uniforms too big for him. Steve taking his alley fights to the front line.

Sergeant Barnes thanked Alpha Holstaff.

Bucky'd laughed in the back of his own head, because how did you play this war right? The whole world was about picked clean of auxiliaries and there were already breeding pairs working support jobs. Omegas climbed up on bombs and alphas worked rivet guns. The whole world was going to just be tiny little packs snarling around neighborhoods at each other. Popping out kids to fill the ranks.

Bucky didn’t set up another fire until morning.

\---

“Lone wolves usually die within the year, did you know this?” Zola was saying somewhere over Bucky's left shoulder. “Yes, wolves. They are not the best hunters. It is not...ah. Efficient to wear down your prey over many miles. Takes too much energy. Then when they catch the prey it is not a quick death. It is over many bites and tears that it dies. You, Sergeant Barnes. You are a good sniper. You kill cleanly. Steady hands. Even when you are all by yourself, yes? This is a rare gift.”

His eyes are starbursts of color. Washes of blue and swatches of green and they sink. They sink into his head and fill all the cavities. His mouth moves and his skin is so...so tight. So tight on his body. If. If somebody could cut it free he could breathe. If somebody could just let some air into his skull he'd be alright. He'd be alright, Steve, just. Just needed some. Air. Space. He was too much self in too little body. He’d been shuffling this body around and doing the Government’s work with it. Now he was about to peel himself out again.

“You ever think about butterflies, Buck?” Steve was asking, somewhere over his shoulder. Except he’s also in a museum, a museum right over Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky can’t see it, but the word smells like old bones. The right one, maybe. “Like, what happens to them in the cocoon. Why not just grow wings? Frogs don't have a cocoon. Turn into frogs just fine.”

“Can't say I've ever thought about it,” Buck said, but no. That's not. He said: “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes-”

“Perhaps we will be on first name basis soon, yes? James? You know the meaning of this-,” and he breaks off into German. Bucky sat inside his own body and his mouth moved and it said: “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.”

(He knew his name meant usurper. A strange name for a guy in the Bible, all said. Was it two apostles with that? James the Greater and James the Lesser. What a joke, being one of thirteen fellas following God’s own beta and being called the Lesser. No pastors banging on about that injustice. Jonathan and David were ready to start a new nation and God said: nope. That’s the sort of thing you could expect outta the Holy Household then sent his Primary to suffer, die, rot. Some fellas go crazy and said they were the second coming, you know, Head of Holies and no Bucky couldn’t much blame them. If he coulda stepped out of his own skull and found some peace he woulda.)

“And you know, butterflies,” Steve says, and his voice sounded so close. Bucky could smell him. “They migrate, like birds. You ever think about how funny that is? They get called from one place to another and back again. You ever feel called back to Brooklyn, Buck?”

“Of course, I do-” Bucky didn't say, because Steve'd smell faded and then it was just the lab, again. The electrical-ozone and concrete smell again. The medical and death smell again. God, but for whatever reason he could still almost scent home. Provided home was the smell of hot dogs, horse shit, car exhaust and people and not...well. Steve.

“If a wolf has no pack it will die. It is too much energy to hunt. Do you think you will starve here, James? Or will you become better? We do need better wolves here. They march where we send them, but they do not think! Or maybe...hmm. Maybe they think too much but they do it wrong. There are no minds like mine, James.”

Before the tests started Bucky’d gotten Zola all neatened up in his head. Fella was sixth or seventh support and got sold off, felt he was smarter than anyone gave him credit and hey. Buddy. Smart fellas don’t need to kill so many good ol’ boys to get the job done. Flop sweat and back of the science class muttering to himself nonsense, that was Zola.

He didn't feel empty. He felt too full. God, if he could just get a knife. Get his skin open, pull out the heart slamming into his ribs. Or. Or reach back, get his skull open. Get the colors out. He could get the colors out. He was good at putting holes into things. Jesus, he was so good at it.

“I mean, what are they doing in there, Buck?” Steve'd ask. “Why not be born a butterfly, huh? Doesn't make any sense, if you think about it. Seems a lot of waste. Why not just stay down south forever, huh? Why fly back? Frogs don't bother with it.”

“What if they think you don't make any sense. All these babies being born and too weak to do anything for years. At least a caterpillar hatches and it can eat for itself, yeah?” Bucky'd said.

Didn't say. He couldn’t.

Can't picture where this is. Was it now? Was it...hell. Steve.

Steve was gonna be so mad at Bucky if he died out here. Was gonna switch all the way up to 90% Screw You, Pal and punch both of the Hitlers in the face himself.

Bucky tried to pull himself back into the idea of Steve instead of the medical ozone smell. For a couple of seconds, he had it. But then the pain roped him back in again.

Maybe Steve’d find an alpha if Bucky could up and die and stop getting in the way. If Bucky could just be good at something… Except he could shoot. He didn’t have to follow his prey until it collapsed. He could pick it off across the entire valley. He knew how to get something from one end to the other. He understood how space worked. He could feel it fizzling on all his insides.

Zola was above him and behind him and that didn't matter so much. Not like what they were filling him with. They were gonna leave him defective. He was gonna get locked up somewhere and rattle his way to a death throw. Zola kept on talking, but there was something else looking at him. Puttering through his head like it was sweating for a flop house.

“You will be the new fist of Hydra, I think,” Zola said, somewhere to Bucky's left. The little weasel shivered in and out of focus. Didn't smell right, if he was a Primary. He talked like he was a big operator, but he smelled like the leavings. The world was too small. The world was too small and Bucky was gonna get crushed anyways. Too small to keep those...those tanks and those guns with lights that made it so there wasn't even a body to send home.

What kinda folks shot on their own? The whole big blue planet was rushing too fast and it was gonna eat itself. Bucky could pick his hand up right now and poke China if he wanted. He could fold up the planet and put it in his pocket. Pull Steve out and Tadaa! Abracadabra.

Wars were about the bodies. You got rid of the bodies and nobody had to deal with what they'd done. Who were you if you didn't even leave a corpse, huh? What were the crows supposed to eat?

The world was too small, and Brooklyn wasn't so far from here if you looked at a map. Could reach right in and just...about…

Zola stroked over Bucky’s forehead. Proud of whatever angel he was carving out of good ol’ Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

\---

Bucky’d gone to his first beta bar on leave with his troop. Never gone back home. Never had the need.

They hadn't known the language, but foreign soldiers on leave only wanted one thing, and the locals liked their money, if not them. American G.I.'s:  **Overpaid, Overfed and Over here!**

So the locals’d pointed them over to a squat little building with a comb on the sign. Everybody knew what it meant if something’s got one of those large-tooth wooden combs on it. Coulda wound up on Mars and done them alright, so long as one of them combs was hanging somewhere.

(“Beware lending your support too long a leash,” the preacher had shouted down from his pulpit. Early morning church every Sunday and twice on holidays. The Head of House marched 'em up in rows, scrubbed 'em up and sat 'em neat. A nickel for the offering plate every Sunday and God help you if you tried to flinch it.

“Less those hardworking souls that the Good Lord granted to our leaders! To his problem solvers! Be led down the path of hedonism and pleasure seeking. Beware allowing them too much leisure. For so it says in the scripture of Romans: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is kind and gracious. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.’"

Bucky'd sat and listened and kept his damn trap shut.

“Support, you must obey the will of your bonded pair. Your labor is your salvation and your animal nature would lead you straight into the sword of God.”

All the Heads of House would nod. Maybe give a stern look to one of theirs. Bucky didn’t ask any stupid questions. But when folks started getting real flustered all about the picture of some thick, wide-toothed comb, eventually a fella knew what to watch.)

So here he was, on leave, and hauled in with the rest of them. Sidled in after the bouncer gave him a cursory sniff and a once over. Sergeant James Barnes had palmed him a dollar because Sergeant James Barnes knew the importance of keeping your fool mouth shut and having a few extra bills lining your shoes.

Then the lot of them had been in like horsemeat in hotdogs.

It’d been a muffled little place, rich with smoke, draped with fellas over couches. Local flavor, mostly, so a few heads poked to look at ‘em. An employee came by with a smile and a tray of cigarettes. Bucky’d smiled when she silently tipped Dum Dum’s hat down and he’d flipped her quarter.

Bucky’d mostly done dance clubs. Folks got upset about liquor and late nights spent pounding your soul into sawdust, sure. Not that way folks got upset at a lady stroking her velvet gloves over the bare face of her microphone. Not the same as letting a stranger drag their fingers up your arm.

Bucky’d slouched down into the open arms of one of those lounges, the pile brushing up soft against the rough wool of his uniform.

Bucky’d gotten his kicks the usual way before. When he was a kid he and his siblings would trade chores for back tracing. The girls got to have hair braiding sessions, which was downright unfair. Except, if you were a fella, then you grew up and you could go in for a shave, a haircut, and a head massage for a quarter. And Bucky was as guilty of that as anybody, but only once a month or so.

The best way was just leaning back and listening while Steve did his drawing. Bucky wasn’t ever gonna be the type to sit and ask for anybody to run their fingers through his hair or nothing. He wasn’t a cad. He gotten his kicks when they were on offer. Steve would rub his back, sometimes. Made more sense to rub Steve’s back, seeing as how his spine’d been crooked.

But here this lovely dame was, all red lips and long gloves slowly scratching down her microphone. Grasshopper crisp, as the books liked to say. If you looked there were folks all cuddled up together and doing whatever it was they wanted. A half drunk glass of gin dangled from loose fingers. Stupid how smells would get to you. The sting of alcohol and there he was, at the dance hall, with Steve feeding him drinks. Marking him up. Smelling sweet and full of promise and looking out for Bucky. Steve'd always had Bucky in his scope, felt like.

He smoked and he watched. Bucky sank into the couch and let his mind wander. Thought about Steve some, sure. Thought about Brooklyn too. Thought about Reuben sandwiches with more sauerkraut than corned beef. Thought about bottled milk instead of armored heifers. Thought about the silver wrapping around Hershey bars. Not even the chocolate, just the shine of the wrapper in the sun. Tossing Steve a new comic rolled up and Steve would keep the dumbest old things because of something about the negative space.

(“Heya, Barnes.” Dum Dum’d said around a bite of what coulda been chicken six-or -seven manufacturing processes ago.

Bucky’d been sharking a card game with Privates Kita, Cunningham, Harris and Graham. Graham especially, poor schmuck, get coming back for more. Hell, the idiot had gotten pepparkakor sent from home, and by some Swedish miracle they’d been crisp instead of stale, and what’d the idiot do? Tossed ‘em into the pile on a dare and a handful of nothing. Kid had the confidence of somebody who used to be hot shit in somewhere nobody could pin on a map.

“Why you gotta a pad of butcher paper stuck in your pocket?” Dum Dum held up Bucky’s coat that he’d tossed to the side somewhere in the second hand.

Sergeant Barnes’d shrugged. “Firestarter.” And Bucky’d sat in his own skin and thought about snitching shoe wadding so Steve’d had something to sketch on. The lesson he’d learned first and best was blank paper weren’t nothing to sneeze on.)

Bucky let time go in coils of smoke. Until last call when Sergeant James Barnes got up, crisp as a new dollar and get the fellas back home again.

\---

“Bucky? Bucky?”

The world was too small and here. He could smell Steve from here. Almost smell Steve. Steve if he was all wrapped up in chemical-ozone. Wasn't much of a protection, was an ocean?

Maybe he’d pulled himself over into Heaven. Lot of folks dying these days, probably room for a clerical error or two.

“Steve?” Bucky mumbled. Blinked because you didn't have to resist torture if you were dead. You got to just be dead.

He'd dodged however many thousand bullets that'd been out for his blood. He’d sat up his tree, under a leaf pile, covered in fox piss and tree sap. Crouched in a bombed out building, or flat on his stomach in the dirt. Run from his life, and crawled and hid and closed his eyes and waited for the world to end. He’d stared down his scope, and felt the wind and the turn of the earth and looked people in the eye when they fell.

But he hadn’t been ordered to march at the head of infantry knowing the enemy had already planted land mines.

But look at him. Look at Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. He died lying down, they’d tell Steve. A gentleman's death. There were soldiers out there that didn't even get buried lying down. Fella hanging in trees like Christmas.

You had to look up before you camped. Sometimes limbs fell down in a breeze. After a body’d been rotting long enough it didn’t even smell. You could confuse a body with a pile of leave if you weren't careful.

Bucky had his whole body together and everything, no staring at his own legs several feet away.

It smelled like Steve. Then again it didn't. Like that first day when he realized Steve was growing up. Didn't smell like a kid, exactly, anymore. Smelled like the electricity of a storm coming. Change wore down everyone eventually.

He'd been one hell of a dumb kid thinking he and Steve could've just been buddies for awhile longer. Before adult stuff came for them.

“God, Bucky. I thought you were dead.”

It was reflex for Bucky to start thinking sweet thoughts. Try and make all that safe-smell so Steve's heart wouldn't go sour. Steve used to bury his nose down against Bucky’s neck and he just. Inhaled.

Steve smelled like a storm and old bones. Bucky's voice came out of him, said something. Said: “I thought you were smaller.”

There were explosions and then that was reflex too, to grab Steve and get out. He was half-dressed, unarmed and his body had been...put together wrong. Something got taken out. Maybe something else put in. Like somebody took apart a radio and made it a clock instead, just 'cause.

Sergeant James Barnes kept talking, thank God. Sergeant James Barnes could talk through anything. Bucky, meanwhile, just wanted to cry for awhile. Good support doesn't cry, though. Don't make a fuss.

Steve smirked and said: “I joined the Army.”

“You got an alpha?” Bucky squinted up at Steve as they ran down the halls.

“That's what you're taking away from this?” Steve asked.

“"A fella’s gotta have priorities.” Bucky’d said because for some reason Steve being big and Steve being whole made enough sense. Butterflies. Lone wolves.

Then there was a bridge across the fire and Bucky couldn't but barely walk. Hell, though, if he was gonna watch Steve fall. Even if Steve was some kinda messed up angel and he was shoving Bucky to heaven by bloody-mindedness.

Though Hell had to be cold, dark and silent. Not fire. Nothing as warm and crackling as fire.

Bucky’s skin was starting to feel looser on his bones. Steve didn't smell right. Tadpoles turned into frogs without bundling themselves up in their own skin. Caterpillars didn't. Caterpillars Turned into goo inside those little cocoons. If you waited they’d turn into butterflies and go south. Always knew how to go south.

“Go on! Get out of here!” Steve shouted. If this was all a lie and something was gonna drag Bucky down to Hell, wasn't gonna be all the bodies, right? Bodies were made in war. That's what wars were good for.

The beam started to fall so Bucky made a last Hail Mary leap across to the other side. His legs felt like jelly, but he saw the railing and thought I need to be there, and he had been.

And then Steve jumped and Bucky saw the acceleration and the trajectory. He saw Steve falling short. It was drawn up in his head like those physics problems. Steve'd accounted for the distance, sure. He didn’t have enough upward momentum to get him the proper arc, because Stevie thought of thing gone flat. Bucky looked as Steve’s arms windmilled through the air, and all he could think of was reaching and grabbing. Of pushing forward and hauling Steve up. He just pulled up for a moment, just thought of Steve’s arc as it should have been, and then Steve was pulling himself up and they were running out running out into the world and...and…

Steve gripped him by the shoulder. “You alright, Buck?”

Bucky stared at Steve and Sergeant Barnes smiled, clapped his (higher, bigger) shoulder and smiled. “Of course, pal. You saved my bacon.”

And Steve’d smiled back. Here, in the middle of godforsaken Europe, was Captain Steven Grant Rogers and Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Steve standing as big and tall as any of them over-fed strapping brass. If Bucky looked at Steve too long then it was like the light was bending around him. The world too small and making space for Steve somehow.

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” He said, somewhere along the way of their forced march back to camp (where Steve says they may or may not get court martialed, depended on how  
badly the press needs a happy story.) The injured ride on the tank, though all said, there weren’t that many injured.

Most of ‘em had died. Taken to the lab and never came back.

“They said that um. That the 107th was imprisoned deep behind enemy lines and I um.” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “I asked if they had your name. I said you were my...well. They didn’t know. Said you were probably... so I had to go. Agent Carter got Howard Stark to fly me over and--”

“Wait, wait you flew with Howard Stark?” Bucky’d read the papers sure. You could be dead under a rock and know the kind of reputation hot-to-trot potential Howard Stark had. Dick was probably spiked instead of knotted the way he yowled around town.

“Yeah, he um.” Steve gestured to himself and eyed the troops out back behind them. Him and Steve being the only brass left marching, albeit support brass.

Steve gestured to himself again, lowering his voice, “he sort of helped make me.”

“Helped make you what?” Bucky looked at Steve’s outfit. “Helped make you that uniform, because that shield’ll do you no good. What’s that, wood? You bringing wood to a gunfight?” Bucky was halfway to boxing him ‘round the ears, way his ma shoulda done.

Bucky took the shield out of Steve’s (too big, too strong) hands and looked at it. There were bits of tape stuck to the back and it weighed just about nothing. “Why’d you even bring this? I could punch through it.”

“No, I mean. Me. He helped make me.” Steve looked down at his hands. “Him and this German scientist-”

Bucky’s back went up and he shoved at Steve. “You don’t actually have one of those-” Bucky gestures to his face. “Because buddy, I gotta tell you, you don’t smell right-”

Steve’s face. God, Steve’s face.

Something’d gone wrong, something was wrong. Steve didn’t have the same-y military scent that was whatever medicine they put pairs on to keep ‘em level. Bucky could place that American, British, Italian, German, whatever. Steve was a combination of scents, some of them from the outside world, some of them from medicine, sure. But Bucky knew his base notes. Could pick Steve out from an entire city. Books sometimes would describe scents like “vanilla” and “evergreen” but Bucky was no cook. Somebody either as Steve or wasn’t and he didn’t know grapefruit from sandalwood and nobody should ask him different.

Bucky was about three parts instinct to one part good ol' Sergeant James Barnes. It was a miracle he didn’t nest Steve down and hide ‘till peacetime.

“God, you smell like gunpowder and oil instead of graphite. Does a fella’s nose in. They ain’t giving baths to the brass anymore?” Bucky made a big show, sniffing Steve’s lapel and Steve laughed and shoved him off. Changed his mind halfway and reeled him back in with an arm over his shoulder. Bucky could smell safe during a bombing, he could smell safe now.

Steve just smiled and let light bend around him all wrong. He smiled and it was sort of soft around the edges like it always used to be. He still had Steve’s lumpy self-portrait in his pocket. And now a fresh off the factory floor version in real life.

(“Hey,” Steve’d asked when his ma was in the hospital and wasn’t coming out again. “You think it’s real bad to grieve over somebody who ain’t dead?”

He’d left off the “yet,” but Bucky’d heard it.

“I mean,” Steve’d looked down at his still hands. “You think. You think it’s...It’s selfish?”

Mrs. Rogers had grabbed Bucky Barnes by the collar, in their last conversation, pulled his ear down and said: “No one would blame you for leaving us. Not him. Not me.”

Bucky’d told Steve she’d said God would strike him down if he didn’t get Steve home to bed, and Steve’d shoved him off. Bucky’d gotten him to bed and gotten him all trapped in limbs and bedsheets. Like the good Lord intended.)

Bucky smiled back, and that wasn't real, but it was what Steve needed. And Hey. Bucky was back in his old gig. Little worse for wear, but from the looks of it, Steve didn’t need him so much anymore.

Steve kept his arm around him. By the time they'd secured the base, everybody was sniffing at him like he was already Head of House. A whole group of barely working bodies waiting for him to say who did what and where. So Bucky said who and he said where and Steve nodded and people did. And went.

“He’s the guy who left you smell like heat sheets, huh?” Dum Dum’d said around a cigar. Lord knew where he’d found it. Superman could fly and Dum Dum could create cigars out of thin air.

“That rumor follow me, or were you there?” Bucky asked, surveying the pooling of resources. Had some fellas scavenging for whatever it was that was edible, Bucky sure as hell didn’t know. (He’d tried to learn a bit. The S.I. had clapped him on the shoulder and said: “Congrats, you’ve poisoned everybody.”)

“I’ve got my sources,” Dum Dum’d crossed his arms and stood next to him, watching Rogers break open locks. “He sure acts you’re the hydrant he pissed on.”

“Do me a favor? Scram.” Bucky’d said and Dum Dum’d just laughed like it was all he was good for.

Sergeant Barnes was the only officer standing. G.I. rumors were fixed and sealed when Steve half-carried-half-shepherded Bucky into their little spot of nothing. Just a buncha leaves to sleep on. Some dandelion salad with tinned German something for dinner. Steve’d thrown down his coat and shoved Bucky down and curled up around him.

“You've been dying to do that since that little growth spurt of yours didn't turn out, huh?"

“I grew three inches in a summer!” Steve protested all good humor and nosing at the back of Bucky’s neck on repeat. “I thought maybe God was giving me a break.”

Bucky huffed, but lay still. Steve rumbled a little, tugged Bucky in too tight. This guy’d lugged trees around like Lincoln Logs, still had graphite stains under his nails and he smelled wrong. He breathed without a hitch.

Bucky’d set up a coupla fellas on watch. He heard their low talking on the other side of camp. Heard some weak coughing and the labored breathing of some of the guys they’d dug out of the labs. At a guess Bucky’d thought they wouldn’t make it long but hey. Apparently, the world had a way of a suprising a fella. Your best pal could dig himself out of his broken-ass body and come save your dumbass from a living Hell. Who knew.

“I spent all that money on those asthma cigarettes and you just go and get some new lungs. Typical.” Bucky grumbled because Steve’s purr always been flat broken. Steve’d been downright sour about it. Folks used it on their kids in the street, and he’d scowl until the sidewalk cracked.

Bucky was a selfish, useless piece of work. Bones ached and he had his firearm. It was clean and dry and in reach. He’d made sure it’d worked. They had no tents and some food and not much portable water...but they had guns. Fancy guns that didn’t even leave a body and made Bucky feel sick. They were wrong from the inside out and back again. And here he was wanting cabbage soup and medical bills.

“I gave them to Mrs. Kenzie. Her breathing hasn’t been good since she started working at the factory. I thought they’d help.” Steve paused and shuffled around. He placed his fingers against the back of Bucky’s neck like he didn’t know what he was doing.

Bucky went still. Swallowed.

“I uh. They set up forwarding our money, so that’s doing alright. Got um. Well, I didn’t have a lot of time, so I had to give most of our good things back to your parents,” Steve lowered his voice and it had a rumble to it. Bucky didn’t want to relax. Didn’t want his body to go all loose because somebody was happy with him. But the damn thing did it anyways.

“Well that’s the last we’ll see of any of that,” Bucky mumbled. Held still as Steve’s (too big, too warm) fingers started at the knob at the top of his spine and trailed up.

Steve shifted and his touch turned firm, running down the tense line of Bucky’d neck. Rubbed at the two tight knots at the base of his skull. Dragged his whole hand down to his shoulder and just...squeezed. Something popped. Let go.

Bucky went with it.

Steve didn’t say anything sappy. Didn’t say “I missed you.”

Bucky didn’t either because it always got Steve’s back up when he’d used to. Just lay there and Steve fumbled his way through a head rub.

The Holstaffs used to take somebody from the group who’d done good and do it right. Do it like at an Arden Spa and they’d offered it to Bucky and Bucky’d gut had always gone cold and hard.Stepped back and given it over to some shaken greenhand who’d needed the support.

Bucky rolled over like a pampered lap dog for goddamn shitshow Steve Rogers. Steve pressed a thumb into his temple. Too hard, maybe, but who knew how hard it felt to Steve? When Steve had a headache he used to reach up and dig a thumb into the ridge of his eye socket. Right by his nose. Wouldn't let Bucky help him much, except to give him an arm massage if he got too tight to work.

“Sergeant, huh?” Steve said hand tucked up under Bucky’d throat and supporting his chin. “How’d you manage that?”

Bucky’d huffed, “Knit socks, baked cookies and they gave me a badge.”

“Bucky, come on,” Steve said and he didn’t have his pen callouses anymore. No gun callouses either. Probably hadn’t gotten his thumb jammed on the equipment.

“Tell you about it later, alright?” Bucky flopped his head down on Steve’s shoulder. His nose found Steve’s neck and inhaled and there he was, somewhere, underneath all this bulk. There he was.

“Alright,” Steve said and wrapped an arm around Bucky’s back, “sure. You can tell me all about it when we get back to base.”

It was embarrassing how fast he fell asleep.


End file.
